


The Heart of Me

by ProwlingThunder



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Budding relationships, Building trust, Civilian and Shinobi, F/M, Tattoos, culture clash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 09:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28469334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: Gloves. In the middle of summer.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character





	The Heart of Me

**Author's Note:**

> Early character/relationship study, in my Genji-lives alternate universe version of Aitai.

One of the things Stan was intensely aware of, after dating Haruko for a year, was that her quirks were a level of baffling he couldn't quite understand. Not that he'd ever dated a Japanese girl before, but he was friends with them, and it was entirely Naomi's fault he'd ended up at the speed-dating service in the first place. He never would have been able to skew up the courage on his own. He was glad Naomi and Aimi had press-ganged him into it though.

Haruko didn't care that he was American, as long as he no longer sang Jpop during Karoke nights, and never, ever touched a biwa again. Considering Stan's musical talents were limited to making the hundred year old Gameboys he'd found in his grandfather's attic play the Mario Kart theme, he wasn't really broken up about this.

But Haruko really wasn't like any other woman Stan had ever met. She didn't care that he was almost painfully awkward around people, and that his tongue had tied itself into knots for the whole first month of their dating. It still happened, sometimes. It had happened a  _ lot _ when Shimada Genji had swooped in and shooed Haruko away, taking him by the shoulder for a walk. During which he had explained in no uncertain terms that Haruko liked him, better than anybody else she had met in the dating pool-- and Stan got the impression that Genji, like Naomi, was the reason that Haruko was at the speed-dating thing at all-- and that she was  _ great, _ and she would absolutely beat up anybody who harassed him, like Haruko's combat prowess was a thing that needed to be firmly impressed upon his mind.

Of course, Genji had laughed and said he was only kidding, but Haruko walked like some soldiers did, a little, and whenever they went anywhere her gaze would sweep over the area in assessment, just as quick and just the same as when Stan found himself looking at a new computer. Stan had left the encounter with Genji feeling a little like he had made a friend and a little like he had been threatened with bodily harm, though more of the former and very little of the latter. It had really left the awareness that Haruko was  _ different  _ than other women burning in the back of his mind, though, and so Stan started watching.

He knew he wasn't very people-smart. He missed some things, and he was badly socialized to anything that didn't have a CPU (which meant he could socialize pretty well with the omnics, and wasn't that something he definitely wanted to write home about? Ah, no.)

But he noticed things.

And of all the things Stan had noticed in the last year (that she loved Genji, in a way he didn't understand. That she didn't have to hold her own against muggers, because she could just flash them a  _ smile _ and they stumbled over themselves, apologizing. That when Genji had left a few months ago, he had left Haruko in charge of the estate, which meant Stan had learned she lived in a  _ castle _ and he visited it more and more often) was that Haruko had absolutely no conniptions shrugging off her shirt to stalk around in the courtyard in the summer wearing basically nothing. Wearing what could be construed as a top only by the most compulsive of liars, in pants that were slightly more true to their designation, and long, bicep-length gloves.

Gloves. In the middle of summer.

He'd seen her strip down to skin more once, changing her clothes in the comfort and privacy of her own room-- he got to spend the nights, sometimes, but  _ only _ to cuddle; she may have been fine with more, he didn't know, but he did know he wasn't quite there yet and honestly, he loved cuddling with her, feeling protected-- but she'd still worn the gloves.

They were in the privacy of her rooms now, relaxing, a sleepover if there ever was one. Stan understood that those things happened now, when they hadn't before, but all the guests were carefully chosen and vetted, protected, and he was  _ extremely _ proud to be on the list, honest. But still. "Haruko," he didn't have a pet-name for her. He'd tried to find one, but nothing had quite fit yet. "Can I ask a question?"

"I think that counts as a question," Haruko mused, after a heartbeat. A lot of her words were non-verbal, a trait she seemed to share with most of the household, but Stan hadn't figured out the language yet, whatever it was.

"Can I ask a  _ different _ question?"

"I think that counts as well," she teased. He smiled a little. It was  _ hard _ for her to tease, even now. It was like she didn't quite understand what it was for. He'd made the mistake of introducing her to Naomi and Aimi, which hadn't gone over as well as he would have liked. She'd done really well pretending not to be baffled and out of her depth around his friends, but she hadn't really seemed like herself, either.

Still, he forged on as bold as he dared, picking his words carefully. There were a lot of things he wasn't allowed to ask about; about the family, the family business, where the hell Genji had gone off to. He wasn't sure if this was one of them or not. "..can I ask.. about the gloves?"

Haruko went dead silent. Stan waited. Minutes stretched by. Finally, after what felt like forever, she tipped her head to the side, decided. "I have... tattoos."

He blinked. "Tattoos?" he echoed, disbelieving. He hadn't expected that. He'd thought... scars, maybe, or just preference-- well, no, not really preference, exactly, considering she stripped down to virtually nothing on the hottest of days, but. Tattoos? Haruko tipped her head again, a slight incline, a nod: yes, tattoos. "That is so  _ cool." _

Haruko turned to stare at him, lips tilted into a slight frown. The same one she'd worn with the girls: out of her element, and unhappy about it, but trying to blend in. Despite himself, he laughed at it, smiling widely at her. Delighted.

"So cool, Haruko! Tattoos! Can I see them?"

A flash of shock through dark eyes, quickly hidden behind a calculating shade.

For a moment, he thought he had overstepped his boundaries, asked something he shouldn’t have asked. But then she brought up calloused fingers to her arm, touching the band of her glove, hesitating, and Stan felt his breath catch in his throat. It was a lot of trust from her; he knew that. He wasn’t about to break it, or try to rush her. That she was even  _ considering _ it…

Tattoos. Wow. Who would have thought it?

Finally the glove came down with a swipe of her fingers, revealing the blue-finned tail and scales of something. Stan edged closer to the edge of the bed, eagerly watching the revelation of skin, the flush of blood beneath her skin. Blushing? Embarrassed. This was something she’d never shown him, maybe something she had never shown anybody, he realized. This was Haruko naked in a way she had never been.

The first glove pooled around her wrist, the serpentine-tail looping around forearm and upper arm both. She released it and worked the other one down, revealing a matching one on the other arm. When it pooled around her wrist, she started working on the fingers, tugging them off one at a time until the whole thing slipped free over her hand and was placed before him on the bed. The first one joined it. 

Some ethereal instinct told him not to touch, even when Haruko offered him her fingers, a prickling of danger like a live electric wire. He traced the tattoos with his eyes instead, following them over the backs of her hands, where the large creature-- a dragon?  _ Dragons. _ \--met with smaller ones on each finger, like mother snakes and nests of babies.


End file.
